New Artistic Fixture Waits at Downtown CATA Bus Stop

He’ll be waiting a long time.

The new sculpture of a technology-savvy grandfather standing at a bus stop outside CATA offices and the Schlow Centre Region Library on Beaver Avenue will be a permanent fixture.

Downtown Eugene Brown, a several hundred pound bronze statue, is more than 6-feet tall. He’s wearing headphones, holding a tablet, and has a copy of the Charles Dickens novel “Great Expectations” in his jacket pocket.

Crews carefully set the statue in place Wednesday afternoon, which was the last step in a two-year process led by Rick Bryant, head of the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts, CATA and the Schlow Library.

An appointed jury selected artist Gavin Gardner of Frederick, Md., out of 138 entries, who modeled the sculpture after his grandfather. It’s the artist’s first piece of public art.

“The work commemorates the meeting between paper books and technology, the welcoming of a new era,” Gardner said in a prepared statement. “He’s put away his paperback for a minute to try new technology. You could say he represents the crossroads of the past and present.”

The corner of Beaver Avenue and Allen Street serves as a transportation hub for those traveling to and from State College. Bryant says the piece enhances the downtown area.

“People will engage with it. I’ve already seen people come up and take their picture with it. It’s fun,” says Bryant. “It also makes it sort of a gathering place, ‘oh, I’ll meet you at the statue.’”

Rich Kalin and Sally Kalin of State College donated the piece to the community. Sally Kalin said Wednesday she is “delighted” to see the public art on display. She compared Gardner’s work to sculptor Seward Johnson.

Schlow Library Director Cathi Alloway says the statue is an embodiment of library’s spirit.

“Rooted in history and committed to preserving and sharing the written word, the library prides itself on being at the forefront of technological innovation,” she says. “Like the gentleman portrayed in this piece, Schlow Library patrons are able to feed their love of reading with both traditional and electronic media.”

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